What is Lumion?
Lumion is a rendering program for architects. It works by importing a 3D model of a room or an entire building – for example from AutoCAD or 3ds Max – which can then be decorated just like a real building would. Thanks to its huge library of detailed objects for both interiors and exteriors, Lumion can turn your sketches into stunningly realistic pictures and animations. Images in particular can be rendered incredibly fast, allowing you to quickly iterate and improve your work. Unlike several of its competitors, Lumion doesn’t render your creations in a vacuum – it’s not quite realistic to have a house surrounded by a plain white background. Instead, it provides many different backdrops to choose from, capable of emulating both urban and rural surroundings. Gorgeous skies can be added to the render as well. All of this is quite amazing – but there is a catch. This software is available only on Microsoft Windows; to run Lumion on Mac, a workaround will be needed. Read the guide below to learn more.
Why doesn’t Lumion run on Mac?
There are several reasons why some apps don’t run on Mac. It could be an incompatibility with Mac hardware or macOS version. For example, macOS Catalina and newer don’t support 32-bit apps. Most developers are designing new 64-bit versions of the apps, but there are still hundreds of apps that didn’t receive an update. In our case, however, the problem is quite different: Lumion native Macintosh version simply doesn’t exist. At the present moment, there is no indication that Lumion will ever be available for Mac, and certainly no stated release date.
How to run Lumion on Mac
The most popular solution for running Lumion on Mac/MacBook is virtualization software. Despite the fact that emulators usually demand quite a lot of computing power out of a Mac, some of them, for example, Parallels, VirtualBox, or VMWare, can be used to run different programs on OS X with minimal losses in performance. Moreover, some of them are compatible with DirectX 11, which can help with running graphically demanding apps and games. They also allow you to copy any files between your Windows installation and OS X freely.
Run Lumion on Mac using Parallels
Parallels Desktop is easily the best virtualization program available on Mac; as such, it is the best way to run Lumion on Mac. It allows you to install Windows 10 on Mac with just a couple of clicks and switch between OS X and Windows instantly. So you will be able to run Windows and install Lumion just like on a regular PC.
Run Lumion on Mac using other virtual machines
Another popular virtualization program is VMware Fusion. It, too, allows running virtual machines with operating systems such as Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. It supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 hardware acceleration, which allows the virtual machines to run heavy, GPU-intensive applications and games with top 3D graphics.
You can also try VirtualBox, Wine, and QEMU, however, these solutions are not user-oriented and may require advanced computer skills.
Run Lumion on a remote server
If you have a powerful Windows-based server and a fast internet connection, you may be able to run Lumion on that server machine and stream its screen to your Mac.
You can use TeamViewer, AnyDesk, or other software for this purpose.
Run Lumion on Windows 10 using Boot Camp
Note: Mac M1/M2 chipsets are not supported by BootCamp
BootCamp allows users to choose which operating system to launch at startup, however, you won’t be able to switch between them like when using Parallels. You will need to reboot your machine every time you want to switch from Mac to Windows and vice versa. Do note that you will need no less than 64 GB of free space on your device (we recommend having 128 GB).
To set up Windows via BootCamp, please, do the following:
Important: for MacOS versions prior to OS X El Capitan 10.11 you will need to create bootable Windows USB.
- Download Windows ISO file
- Open Boot Camp Assistant (Go to Applications > Utilities)
- Define the Windows partition size choose downloaded Windows ISO file
- Format Windows partition and go through all Windows installation steps
- When Windows boots for the first time follow on-screen instructions to install Boot Camp and Windows support software (drivers)